Self efficacy: How much you Believe in Yourself

Self-efficacy is a concept introduced in 1977 by Albert Bandura, a Canadian psychologist and professor at Stanford University, recognized for his work on social learning theory. The ideas of self-efficacy, in addition to having generating sources, manage to activate a set of spaces to implement them, known as processes that are activated from the strength of beliefs.

In order to succeed, people need a sense of self-efficacy, to struggle together with resilience to meet the inevitable obstacles and inequities of life. Albert Bandura

Self-efficacy is interested in people’s beliefs and their abilities to exercise control over situations that affect their lives. People who have a high sense of effectiveness tend to challenge what they can master, while those who are full of self-doubt tend to withdraw from activities and situations that they believe are beyond their abilities and these kinds of choices. They influence the course of their career and the kind of life they want to lead.

Never give up until you reach your goals?

Do you give up on the first change?

Do you trust your abilities, abilities to reach your goal?

Or do you doubt them?

Briefly defined self-efficacy is “How much do you believe in yourself.”

The question is not what you have but how you use it and from this point of view, you see that you can have the same skills and abilities and use them poorly, adequately, or extraordinarily depending on self-confidence. It is for this reason that it is often possible to predict more successful people’s accomplishments from their own confidence than from their past accomplishments. Therefore, the concept does not refer to the resources that you have but to the opinion, you have about what you can do with them.

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What is Self-efficacy?

Self-efficacy can be defined as:

The belief that one has of their own success or of the ability to achieve it. Albert Bandura.

Self-efficacy is closely linked to success orientation because it plays an important role in how goals, tasks, and challenges are approached by each of us.

How does my performance influence your history of success or failure?

• If it is positive, it increases my self-confidence and ability to overcome obstacles.
• If it is negative, “Pessimism on board” appears, it limits our level of self-efficacy.

How much impact does our self-efficacy have on the results we have?

The wheel of expectation of self-efficacy is key here:

(1) If I believe that I can.

(2) I feel that I can.

(3) Higher level of effort to achieve what I want.

(4) Higher level of perseverance.

(5) And the higher probability of achieving the goal.

But a lot of eyes work the other way around: If I believe that I cannot or I feel that I cannot because I have fear (fear of change and fear of failure) or experiences with greater difficulty in which I have not achieved it. My capacity for persistence or perseverance in the objective decreases; and, therefore, the probability of achieving it is also reduced.

Note: Self-esteem, self-concept, or self-confidence should not be confused with perceived self-efficacy, since they have a global or general nature, and yet self-efficacy is more linked to specific tasks and abilities, in addition to considering the subject as a proactive learner and continuously with capacity for transformation, development, and initiative.

Seven keys to how to work on self-efficacy:

• Make a personal accomplishments list. What did each one bring you and what helped you achieve them?
• Identify people you admire. What do you have in common with them?
• Surround yourself with people who Empower you, are Optimistic and proactive, with a desire to improve, with self-confidence, and of course who believe in you.
• Check your emotions; they will be able to tell you: let’s go for it, go ahead, for your goal!
• Create a habit of always being positive and optimistic.
• If you face a failure, it’s just a mistake! Analyze and learn. Failure is nothing more than learning.
• Every success, you sign up for it, and you celebrate it, your self-esteem is the fuel for your self-efficacy.

Trusting yourself does not guarantee success, but not doing so guarantees failure. Albert Bandura

Let’s have a look at the 20 characteristics that stand out in people who show higher levels of self-efficacy.

1. They set bigger objectives (goals) and much more challenging challenges
2. They maintain a very high level of commitment
3. Has a high and healthy level of self-confidence
4. They firmly believe in their own abilities to solve complex situations by their self-belief.
5. They pose great security and control, as a leader
6. As they have great knowledge of their abilities, they get the maximum potential from their strengths. Hence they stand out naturally within a group.
7. The greater the obstacle and the greater the effort, the more stimulated they feel.
8. Complex tasks are accessible and exciting.
9. They are carriers of positive thoughts and they infect it.
10. They are persevering to achieve the proposed objective.
11. It allows us to objectively evaluate our beliefs, both limiting and empowering, to reach the goal.
12. Faced with a failure, there is learning and strengthening of self-efficacy because they experience “a controlled failure“. They know how to control the situation. And they have a constructive view of mistakes and failures.
13. They are more tolerant of stress.
14. The threats transform them into opportunities.
15. Faced with failure, they quickly regain self-efficacy, as they attribute it to a lack of effort and not skill.
16. Empowers them
17. Increase communication skills to sell, negotiate, and resolve conflicts.
18. Large doses of Emotional Intelligence, in their intrapersonal skills (Goleman model) (self-awareness and self-management). The management of our internal states. He brings excellent individual and team performance.
19. Awareness to achieve the objectives with versatility and proactivity.
20. They achieve better results, and they are more productive.

Self-efficacy, those feelings that we are capable of, can be built as we have seen accumulating successes, no matter how small. Our thoughts should always be positive to avoid being anchored to “I am not capable of achieving that”. Here are the 10 Steps to Learn to Love Yourself.

People’s beliefs about their abilities have a profound effect on those abilities. Ability is not a fixed property; there is huge variability in how you perform. People who have a sense of self efficacy bounce back from failure; they approach things in terms of how to handle them rather than worrying about what can go wrong. Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control by Albert Bandura

The leader has to promote self-efficacy among his collaborators and teams by creating feelings of “being capable of”, “you can” and of course “we can”. This is why self-efficacy is so necessary for Leadership. If your collaborators do not see you “the feeling of self-efficacy” the leadership will not be effective.

It is considered that when you give (and feel that you give) 120% of your capacity, your company or organization is strengthened, and your colleagues and collaborators also feel that they are capable, they work for it and increase results. In these moments of digital transformation where people come first and there is so much talk about creating, innovating, and reinventing; our feeling of capacity about ourselves is a fundamental pillar on the path of personal and professional success.

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